I started thinking about the soundtrack to my life over the last ten years and decided I needed to get some thoughts on paper (well, words on a computer screen, I suppose). Anyhow, over the next month, and potentially into 2010, although that might defeat the purpous, I am going to pick indivdual albums, ideas, movies, TV shows, and whatever the hell else strikes me that (for me) defined this decade.
The Strokes "Is This It?":
I bought this album on July 4th, 2002 after spending the previous night scouring websites for videos from the album (ah, the days before You Tube) and reading a post on RollingStone.com that lumped The Strokes with Guns n' Roses and Aerosmith as the greatest American rock and roll bands of all time, a claim that at the time (and even today) I find to be quite a stretch.
Regardless, after getting off of work (waiter at Chili's) without getting a single table during my shift (remember, this is the 4th of July there wasn’t a market for fajitas), I proceeded to get into my 1991 baby blue Plymouth Voyager and drive to Best Buy where I to purchase the album. With a few hours to kill before heading to a barbeque with my roommates, I proceeded to spend the next three hours driving around the Twin Cities with the album on repeat.
What struck me about the album then, and this still holds true today, was the simplicity of the record. I've heard a story from my fiancé (it's a "friend of a friend" story), where someone saw The Strokes playing in New York back around 1998-1999 and said they were awful and barely able to play their instruments. Now, I can't verify that this story is true, but it seems very probable when you listen to "Is This It?". The record sounds like musicians who just figured out how to play their instruments. There is nothing complex about the album (with the possible exception of the Casio drum loop on "Hard to Believe" because I would imaging it's tough to program that stuff when you're on coke, which I assume The Strokes were on when they made "Is This It?"--and pretty much every other album during their careers).
Although "Hard to Explain" was the first single released from the album, it was "Last Nite" that vaulted The Strokes into the mainstream. Originally, the band wanted to avoid making music videos, but the promise of a live, low budget video for "Last Nite" changed their minds. The end result was a music video that summed up the band better than any other music video I can remember (although I’m very much open to debate on this topic). The video was a simple, no frills, bells, or whistles display of rock and roll (if you don’t count the “Press Your Luck” influenced background), very much like the band itself—their only “rock star” moment of the video is Julian Casablancas doing a javelin toss with the microphone stand.
My personal favorite song on the album is “Someday”. I suppose there are a few reasons for this. The first being that I could listen to the entire song in the amount of time it took me to drive to Chili’s from home back in 2002 (assuming I didn’t hit every red light along the way). I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that from July of 2002 until sometime during the Spring of 2003, I listened to “Someday” on my way to work 90-95% of the time, easy.
The video for “Someday” was quite a bit different from “Last Nite”. Upping the budget quite a bit, the “Someday” clip featured the band hanging out at an empty Los Angeles bar where they sit around and drink with Slash, Matt Sorem, and Duff McKagan (and from what I can tell, Julian teaches Slash the merits of pinball), play Family Feud against Guided by Voices. This video seemed like a tactical move by the record company to me. It gave the casual MTV viewer the perception that The Strokes were “metal” enough to get the stamp of approval from Guns n’ Roses (sans Axl) and “indie” enough to kick it with Guided by Voices. Did RCA’s gamble work? Well, “Is This It?” went Platinum.
The Strokes - Someday (Official Music Video) - Funny video clips are a click away
